Forgiveness-related Motivation Effects On Interpersonal Relationships:the Intermediary Effect Of Empathy

College students hail from all corners of the country. On account of the different habits and native places, as well as the difference of family economic conditions, their interpersonal relationships seem to be very complicated. In recent years, campus interpersonal conflict, and the resulting campus violence has become increasingly prominent. Campus security and stability has drawn wide attention of the society, and students’ interpersonal problem has become a hotspot in the study of researchers. Previous studies are generally "diagnostic", without going deep into the student’s heart, thus cannot fundamentally solve interpersonal conflict. Imagine, when you encounter offence or unfair treatment, will you forgive the other party? Usually out of what kind of forgiveness-related motives? What kind of forgiveness-related motivation will actually remove interpersonal conflict, to avoid campus violence, ultimately? This research attempts to study college students’ interpersonal relationship from the perspective of positive psychology of forgiveness-related motivation. McCullough and other scholars believe that the reason why people forgive the offender is that they have empathy on the offender. Empathy is one of the factors affecting people’s forgiveness behavior. Forgiveness out of empathy on the offender helps to alleviate the interpersonal conflict and set up and maintain the relationship. This study attempts to verify the relationship between forgiveness-related motivation, empathy and interpersonal relationships, and whether empathy plays an intermediation role in forgiveness of interpersonal relationship.In this research two random sampling were conducted:the first survey in2universities, namely, Anhui agricultural university, and Wuhan donghu university.310questionnaires were distributed in total, among which293were valid, the effective rate of94.5%, and this was sample1.Among the valid subjects,141are freshmen,62sophomores, and90juniors. The second was also carried out in these two universities, this time a random sample of435subjects, among which409are valid questionnaires, the effective rate of94%, and this was sample2.Of the valid subjects,229are freshman,58sophomores, and122juniors.At present, our country has just started forgiveness psychology research, and through consulting a large number of literature, we found that forgiveness-related motivation questionnaires are few and far between, so, this study introduce forgiveness-related motivation scale documented by Sandrine Ballester (2011) and others, trying to revise this scale. Four dimensions are obtained through exploratory factor analysis on the sample1data:forgiveness through the restoration of sympathy, forgiveness as the recovering of mastery, forgiveness through morality, forgiveness through; Through confirmatory factor analysis and reliability analysis on the sample2data, we found that the revised questionnaire has better fitting degree and more reasonable structure. The internal consistency coefficient of the above four dimensions are:0.797,0.725,0.742, and0.725.In addition, we have applied the revised forgiveness-related motivation questionnaire to the survey on the present situation and characteristics of our college students’forgiveness-related motivation, studying the relationship between forgiveness-related motivation, empathy and interpersonal relationships, and the intermediation role of empathy between forgiveness-related motivation and interpersonal relationship.This study concluded as follows:1. Revision of the forgiveness-related motivation questionnaire has good internal consistency, reliability and structural validity, thus can be used as a useful tool for measuring forgiveness-related motivation of domestic college students.2. Compare forgiveness-related motivation of college students from the angle of population characteristics. Statistical results show that college students’ forgiveness-related motivations reveals significant difference in gender, boys are inclined to forgiveness as the recovering of mastery and forgiveness through compared to girls; On the demographic variable of grade, forgiveness through the restoration of sympathy and forgiveness as the recovering of mastery have significant difference, compared to the freshmen and junior students, a sophomore is more inclined to forgiveness as the recovering of mastery; the forgiveness-related motivation also have significant difference in different professional categories, science majors are more likely tend to forgiveness through the restoration of sympathy and forgiveness through morality; No differences was shown in students’ native places and the only child’s factor.3. Forgiveness through the restoration of sympathy, forgiveness through morality and forgiveness through all show significant positive correlation with forgiveness-related motivation.4. Forgiveness through the restoration of sympathy and forgiveness through morality are shown significant negative correlation with interpersonal relationship troubles.5. Empathy and interpersonal relationship troubles have significant negative correlation.6. Empathy has a partial intermediary effect between forgiveness-related motivation and interpersonal relationships.